5 Days of Science-y Holiday Cheer!

December 4 - 8, 2017

Ready for some holiday fun, 
science-style?

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all have supported my work through 2017.  To celebrate the holidays, and the entire year, let's have some fun with a week of giveaways, freebies, discounts, and more!

For the third year, a group of science teachers / TPT authors are having a blast with the "Five Days of Holiday Cheer."  Super fun stuff will be happening each day, December 4 - 8.  There will be promotions, free stuff, gift cards, sales, and more free stuff! Well, let's just say that each day just gets better and better!

These offers will be available ONLY to the subscribers on my email list.

What???  You are not on my email list??  Please look to the right side bar and sign up immediately!  Please enter your email in the "Want My Newsletters?" box to the right.

You'll receive an email from me each morning between 6 and 7 am (CST) letting you know about the fun happenings of the day.  I sure hope you can join us!  The offers are time-sensitive, and are good for one day only.  Be sure to open that email each and every day!

Watch for my first email on Monday, December 4.  I think you will be very pleased with Day 1.  (Hint, hint....  It might involve some free stuff!)

Happy Holidays!!

The Pros and Cons of Outdoor Science Education

The benefits of taking our science students out of the classroom for an outdoor activity are many ... BUT, you better be prepared and super organized!

If I ask my students what the term “environment” means to them, I am going to get a wide variety of answers.  Many of them will automatically think of a beautiful setting in nature, such as a bubbling creek through a forest, a field of wildflowers, or a stand of shimmering evergreen trees along a mountainside.  However, the “environment” is so much more.  It is everything that exists around us.  It is the natural world as well as all of the things that have been produced by humans.  The environment is an incredibly complex web of interactions between the living and the nonliving components of Earth.  I'd wager to say that most of our students pass through their "environment" on a daily basis without ever noticing that "things" are going on.  They may frequent a public park or live on a lake or pond, but rarely do they notice the complex web of interactions that are taking place right before their eyes.

 

When I go outside my mind is racing a mile a minute.  Even if I am walking across the parking lot to enter my local Wal Mart I am going to notice a bird singing or that the clouds are particularly fluffy.  Admittedly, I am a big nature nerd, but I get so much joy from experiencing nature, and I want my students to experience this as well.

The million dollar question is, "Can I get my students to think like me?"  

The students sitting in our classrooms today are going to be the decision makers (and voters) of tomorrow.  The bottom line is that Planet Earth needs our protection.  We have to teach our students about the natural world, and about the things that damage the natural world.  And the first step to effective environmental education is simple ... We have to get our students to NOTICE what is going on around them.  

How do we accomplish getting teenagers to notice nature when that is probably the last thing swirling around in their teen-aged brain?  The answer is:  Take them outside and force them to notice.  Oh, don't be fooled by their initial excitement when you announce to the class that the next few days will be spent outdoors.  They are already thinking that this is going to a welcome holiday away from the classroom setting!  You, the instructor, will have to be organized.  You must have a solid plan and procedure for what the students will be expected to do.  And you must give enough weight to the grade that it grabs their attention.

Let's think carefully about the pros and cons of this venture before we begin.

Pros:

• The first is obvious:  Students love to go outside!
• The ecological concepts we teach in the classroom can be reinforced by a quality outdoor activity.
• Students practice the skill of making good observations.
• It teaches and reinforces a different sort of data collection than they normally experience in a laboratory setting.
• An outdoor activity will probably involve drawing and mapping which will appeal to many of the students.
• It teaches students to pay attention and notice the world around them.
• Instilling a love of nature in a student will hopefully lead to an adult who wants to protect nature.
• The benefits of group work and the reinforcement of social skills are certainly life lessons that will be utilized long after the subject matter is forgotten. 
• It doesn't matter if you live in the city or in the country.  If you have plants, then you have an ecosystem that can be studied.

Cons:

• It can be time consuming:  Can you give up several days to carry out one project?
• Classroom management:  Will the students behave outdoors?

Tips on Getting Started:  

• Know what you want to accomplish.  Have a well thought-out plan with concrete objectives.  Don't take students outside and "wing it." That is a recipe for disaster.
• Have specific goals in mind when designing your activity.  Know what you want the students to learn from doing the activity.
• Make the assignment an important part of their grade so that most of the students will be willing to do quality work.

I like to do an activity that I call "Exploring an Ecosystem" in which I have my students study and analyze the physical features of an ecosystem, the living organisms within the ecosystem, and the interactions between these two components.  It involves marking off an area with stakes and string that measures 5m x 5m.  Students are required to work in close-knit groups to draw a detailed ecosystem site map and provide a color-coded key for everything in their ecosystem.  The students will identify the living organisms in their ecosystem and answer a detailed set of 29 questions designed to prompt them in making good observations.  Students will make food chains and food webs using the organisms in their ecosystem.  Students look for abiotic factors, biotic factors, evidence of competition, camouflage, predator/prey relationships, limiting factors, etc.

My objectives may seem simple, but they are actually quite involved:  

•   The student will survey an ecosystem to map out the physical characteristics of the land and to identify the living organisms that inhabit the ecosystem.

•   The student will describe and analyze the various relationships that exist within the ecosystem.

To ensure that my students accomplish my objectives I provide them with a set of handouts that provide clear instructions, safety precautions, and detailed analysis questions.

Click on image to view this resource in my TpT store.

Make sure that the students read the lab handouts, including all analysis questions, before beginning the project.  The questions are designed to guide the students in their observations of the selected ecosystem.  Students will often miss interactions that are occurring simply because they do not know to look for them.  Many of the questions used in this activity will prompt students into making good observations.

Click this image to view my Ecosystems PowerPoint.

I highly recommend that students receive prior instruction before tackling an outdoor project. In order to complete this ecosystems study, students should be familiar with key concepts in ecology. A few days of classroom instruction are needed to make sure that the students benefit from the days spent out of the classroom.  If the students are unprepared, the outdoor activity can quickly degenerate into playtime and goofing around. The benefits of outdoor learning are many, and the negatives are few, provided that you have a quality assignment, concrete learning objectives, and a good classroom management plan in place.

Have fun teaching outdoors!!

Charles Darwin: The Tale of Evolution

Over 130 years have passed since the death of Charles Darwin.  Despite the passage of time since Darwin first presented his ideas on natural selection, there continues to be controversy surrounding his theory of evolution.  In 1973, Theodosius Dobzhansky published an essay in American Biology Teacher in which he stated, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”  Truer words were never spoken.  When teaching a biology class, we shouldn’t limit our students to a single unit on the theory of evolution.  Rather, the theme of evolution should be woven throughout every unit we teach.

I designed this teaching resource to teach my biology students about the man, Charles Darwin.  Darwin was a religious and thoughtful man, as well as a superb scientist.  However, I have found that I still have students in my class who view him in a less than complimentary light.  My main goal in writing this journaling activity was to provide my students with the facts and information they need to form their own opinions and conclusions based on the evidence presented.  After all, that is the goal of science, right?

I had two goals in mind when writing “Darwin’s Diary.”  First, I wanted to include enough biographical information about Darwin to teach my science students about his life.  Second, I wanted to produce a class project that would require my students to be thoughtful and introspective, while at the same time, ensure that they master the concepts of evolution.

What will the students be doing?

This teaching resource is written as if it were a diary kept by Charles Darwin throughout his life.  The entries in the diary are designed to teach about the life of Darwin, and the events that led him to develop his theory of evolution.  The 26 diary entries include facts and information about Darwin as well as actual quotes from Darwin.  Students are asked to respond in some way to each diary entry.  In some diary entries students will be asked to offer opinions, but in others, they must provide correct answers to questions.  In order to complete this project, students need to receive instruction in the concepts covered in an “Introduction to Evolution” chapter of a typical high school biology textbook.

Click on any image to view this resource in my TpT store.

I had such a great time doing the research for this evolution journaling activity! Darwin's life was full of the same drama, struggles, accomplishments, and tragedies that we all face today.  Darwin was witty, introspective, and very adventuresome!  I was able to find and use his own writings to use in the diary entries, and his descriptions of his daily life are simply amazing.  In one dairy entry Darwin describes collecting beetles.  Both of his hands were full holding beetles, so in order to catch a new beetle, he popped one into this mouth to free up a hand to catch another!  He describes his struggles trying to please his father, his tiny quarters aboard the Beagle, riding on the backs of Galapagos turtles, marriage, and his concern about the uproar that would be caused by publishing his theory.  As you can see, I am completely captivated by the details of his life, and your students will be as well!

What is needed to complete this assignment?

In order to complete these assignments, students will need to use the following resources:

•  Biology textbook

•  Notes taken during class

•  Online Resources

This diary activity is perfectly aligned with my teaching PowerPoint, “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.” It includes a 96-slide PowerPoint with notes for teacher and students. Click the image to the right to view this product on TeachersPayTeachers.

How can you use this in your classroom?

•    I suggest copying all pages and passing them out to your students on the first day of your evolution unit.  The activity is designed to be used over multiple days as you teach your unit on evolution.  

•    Use only the pages you want.  There are enough student pages included so that you have the flexibility to choose the pages best suited for your needs. 

•    Each day during your unit, have students complete a number of the dairy entries.  These pages make great classroom activities as well as quality homework assignments.  You will find that the content of the diary entries will generate much classroom discussion.

•    The questions used in this assignment are of two types.  Some questions require the students to express their opinion, but most questions require a research-based correct answer.  I accept any and all answers to opinion-based questions as long as the student has given an honest effort to express his/her opinion.  If this assignment is to be graded make sure that students know that they are expected to provide correct answers for the majority of the questions.

      

    At the end of "On the Origin of Species", Darwin writes, “There is grandeur in this view of life … from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” This teaching resource is a journey through time that allows our science students to learn about the events throughout Darwin's life that led him to write and publish "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection."